


With Paper Cranes

by Demeter



Series: Turning [2]
Category: Fruits Basket
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Gen Fic, Lots of Angst, akito is a little crazy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-02
Updated: 2012-08-02
Packaged: 2017-11-11 07:00:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/475841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demeter/pseuds/Demeter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Ox finally turns his back on God.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Paper Cranes

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: All rights and privileges of Fruits Basket characters, objects and plots are property and trademarks of Takaya Natsuki and associated parties. The author claims no legal responsibility for problems associated with using this work.
> 
> A series of works where the Zodiac go against Akito (even as their hearts are cleaved in two).

  


* * *

The wood splinters beneath his fist, and he can distantly feel fragments dig into his flesh and embed themselves in a leather glove made snug by wear. Physical pain is secondary as the blank look of shock settles in and betrayal shadows every corner of a face twisted by madness. Haru inwardly weeps, because that face has not changed and yet it has.

_Haru, Haru, you're **my** Ox, so I'll take care of you._

Something burns in his eyes and he knows it might be tears that can never fall. He remembers a boy, soft and pretty and so very lonely. He sees in his mind's eye the figure of a rampaging tyrant, a child with a whip too large for hands thinned by illness. The lashes fall; they never hit but the sound alone cracks lines into his mind and he knows cowardice will be his downfall and denial the root of his grief. Haru has been lost his entire life, going one direction when he meant the other, and the physical manifestation is his inability to find the restroom during breaks.

The sturdy grip of Kyo's hand comes back and no matter how much they fight, he can always depend on the cat to lead him home. Parallels leap and stir dust as Akito never leads and never saves and can only destroy. It is bitter irony, unlost, that the word 'God' has become synonymous with failure and pain.

She (Rin, Rin, oh Rin) flashes over his eyes, clouded by disappointment and grief and maddening fury. Akito hates her and Haru never knows why. He pulls back his fist, the wooden frame shuddering in the aftermath of the onslaught. Akito looks bewildered, an emotion almost alien to the sharp lines that crown his delicate face. The next words kill and they are quite merciless.

"Speak to me again and I'll kill you and then kill myself."

Haru can feel Akito's eyes widen in disbelief, can hear the fine threads go snap, snap, snap as the impossibly complex bonds that connect them melt in misery. An ocean of sorrow swallows his heart, and he knows that he will regret this moment for the rest of his life, but Akito must know, Akito must realize, Akito cannot stay this way any longer. Haru is lost, but Akito's place in the world never existed in the first place. Haru finally knows which direction he must go and the feeble way he can hear Akito's voice call for him touches off a buried bomb in his mind where Akito folds paper cranes to grant one wish for every thousand painful memories.

_I do this for you..._

On a distant veranda, where the sun never sets and the flowers always bloom, Akito and Haru laugh in a careless, shining way.

**  
**


End file.
